Several key things were missing from the mix at this year’s Davos meeting,
according to the breakfast panel — young people, women and serious
discussion about climate change, to name but a few.

Tracy Corrigan, from TheWall Street Journal, told the
Downloading Davos breakfast that discussions at the forum had concentrated
on economic growth, which was “slightly incompatible to focusing on
long-term investment in climate change”.

However, Ms Corrigan said that climate change and income inequality should
have been higher up the agenda at Davos this year. “The reason it wasn’t
discussed is that it is very difficult to deal with,” replied Sir Martin
Sorrell.

He added that it was a mistake for world leaders to ignore the growing middle
classes. “It is a truth that the rich invest in non-productive assets, while
those with middle incomes invest in productive assets,” he said.

The other problem was that companies such as WPP could see that growth was
most likely to be in emerging nations, including Brazil, Russia, India and
China, which was likely to fuel inequality in Western Europe.

Delegates did attempt to tackle the issue of youth unemployment. But Sir
Martin said that despite the introduction of 70-80 “global shapers” at the
World Economic Forum — people aged between 20 and 30 with future leadership
potential — there was a distinct lack of young people speaking at the event,
with a Davos panel on youth unemployment mocked for its lack of youth
representation.

Another under-represented sector of society was women, although again despite
the World Economic Forum’s best efforts. For the first time, it required
Strategic Partners — those paying annual membership of $527,000 (£332,000)
in addition to $19,000 a ticket — to invite at least one woman for every
five men who attended, in an attempt to dilute the testosterone.

Perhaps more worrying than the gender of delegates was the sense that there
was no accord between key tribes of Davos delegates. Ms Corrigan reported
that there did not seem to be any sense of connection between politicians
and business people.

“I was disappointed that there was not more debate about models of capitalism
and how business and government could work together,” she said. “Business
was not strong. It needs a stronger voice. It needs to come up with models
or bad models will be put into place,” she warned.

There were some key political and business figures missing too. James Harding,
the Editor of The Times pointed out that elections in Russia, France
and the USA had meant some stayed at home.